Massanutten Hoooooo Haaaaaaaa!

Ahhhhh the hoooo haaaaa. This past weekend the team headed down to Harrisonburg, Virginia for the last race in the Triple Crown series. The riding down south is awesome, and this race course was no exception. It had so much different terrain, from smooth and fast, to slow and technical with everything in between. The basic layout of the course is straight up the mountain then straight back down, with an amazing piece of trail going across the ridge at the top. I absolutely love this course I love the long sustained climb and the descent is awesome, mix in all the different terrain and it is up there with my favorite place to race all season. Most of the team got there friday night and set up camp. We had a little friend take the trip down from Delaware to Virginia with us, it was a spider about the size of my palm. I found out how much I hate spiders. We did a nice easy spin after we finished getting all set up. A awesome dinner consisting of steaks and potatoes followed, delicious. Saturday was filled with racing, super D at 1:00 and short track at 4:00. Scottie took a bit of a tumble on his way down the very long super D course, luckily he was fine. Gunnar absolutely killed it in the Open short track, yes he was racing with the likes of Sid Taberlay and Jeremiah Bishop. He was lapped just a few hundred feet from the finish line and had a front row seat to the crash that decided the race between Taberlay and Bishop. Right on the last berm/turn of the race there was some contact between them and Taberlay went down, Gunnar got to see the whole thing play out. Finally Sunday was the big XC race, lots of big names and with a very challenging course ahead of us with some very hot temperatures everyone was nervous. The gun went off and with the mass start of all Pros, Cat 1's & 2's it was chaos. The combination of a dust storm, lots of elbowing and all the jockeying for position made this one of the most intense starts I have ever been in. The course was in prime condition not to wet not to dry, and with a few hundred racers it made passing really hectic, thats if you could pass. The whole climb up for me was spent trying to get past people who had dabbed or gotten off on some rock gardens, or people whose pace was just too slow for me. It was tough to stay on the gas the whole time, people wouldn't let you by even when they were walking and even if you asked for the pass they never seemed to want to give up there spot. The descent was a little better with a less traffic. After it was all said and done, It was a fun day but I definitely didn't leave enough out there. Jake straight killed it and finished 3rd in Cat 1 19-29 and was super pumped on his result. Scottie finished 7th in Cat 2 U18. I finished up 4th in Cat 2 U18 as well. Awesome weekend of racing and I know everyone is really excited for the always fun Marysville stage race this weekend. Jake and Scottie will be taking on solo for the weekend. Jeff and I are racing duo together, and Zach will also be racing all weekend. Gunnar is off at the USAC camp down in North Carolina getting some information from Jeremiah Bishop and some other USAC coaches.


-Kyle